The tasting room is the first thing you see when you turn on Grand Ave in Los Olivos. I am a sucker for good design and styling and whoever decorated SaS (I hear it's the wife of one of the owners), knew what they were doing. When you walk in, you immediately feel like you are in a hip club, then that feeling immediately changes to anxiety. Am I cool enough to be here? Is anyone going to pay me any attention? Luckily, the pourers, and one of the owners, are very approachable and do their best to give everyone a minute of their time. On to the vino!
I am not a wine guy. It's not that I don't like it, I just don't know anything about it and I don't even try to learn because, quite frankly, it seems overwhelming. I don't know much but what I do know counts - do I like how it tastes or not? Simple. The pourers do a great job of telling the story of the winery from its humble beginnings where the owners only farmed grapes to present day where it dawned on them that they should be fermenting the fruit. I am glad they decided to do so because the wine is quite tasty. I think my favorite is the 1946 [edit: corrected thanks to the commentor] which is a blend of 60% syrah and 40% cab sav. Get it? 6-4? 1946? Oh, it doesn't end there. The picture is an old family photo of the founder and his wife on their honeymoon. Two people? A blend? A wine blend. God, these Sas people are clever. By the time you finish the 6th wine, you feel like you have an abridged history of the family (and even Extended Family which also happens to be the name of the last bottle).
The people at SaS are marketing geniuses. They have tapped into the cupcake craze with Enjoy, offer deals on Foursquare (don't forget to check in, though I might as well tell you now - you won't usurp King Keith), somehow are able to attract the trendiest and prettiest people into their tasting room, and have a really cool story to tell with their bottles. This all would mean nothing if their wine wasn't delicious, but luckily it is.
Don't take my word for it. Go check it out one weekend while this beautiful SB weather lasts. If you're unsure, at least go for the cupcakes and stay for the wine. If you like a bottle, pull the trigger. Unlike other wineries that make yearly editions of the same wine, SaS makes their wines once only. That means that 1964 I liked so much won't see a repeat performance next year.